People Shouldn't Die on Christmas
by Chaser14
Summary: It's Christmas Eve in the snow covered New Jersey. A lonely Gregory House walks through the town to contemplate the meaning of Christmas. OneShot


In a celebration of Christmas time, we delve into the mind of Gregory House. Please R&R!

Snowy flakes of white heaven fell down in the abandoned New Jersey town. Already the ground had collected a light powdering, adding to the snow that had fallen several days ago.

Gregory House was not surprised that there was no one about today. Indeed, the street lamps were lit only for him. All the shops along the street were closed, and not a soul was about that December evening. _Why would they be?_ Greg pondered. _Who decides to go for a stroll on Christmas Eve?_

Greg did. He didn't really want to, but staying home was the alternative, and it was altogether too quiet there. _No one should have too much silence_, Greg decided.

There was a more peaceful silence out in the snow. The aging man felt a little connected to the world. He glanced at a storefront, the door locked and the blinds pulled. Hearing voices and music above him, he realized that the owners were enjoying a Christmas Eve party in the apartment upstairs. Laughter rang down and struck him in the heart. He suddenly wished he had stayed home.

He walked on, just wanting to get away from those people. _What was the point of Christmas? _Greg asked himself, for the tenth time that day. _Oh right, the birth of our Savior._ _But not all the Christmas celebrators are Christians. So for the rest of us?_

He shook his head, clearing the snow from his hair. He pulled his long coat tighter against himself. He was nearing the hospital now. He thought it funny he had ended back to the one place he had been so eager to leave only hours earlier. He sat on the snow-covered bench in front of the magnificent building, pulling his deformed leg up into a comfortable position.

When he listened closely he could hear still hear some of the goings-on of the hospital. _People die even on Christmas, _he thought. It didn't sit right with Greg. _Christmas is a useless a holiday as any. People get together in their own closed circles, pretend for a couple of days that life's great and hand each other presents, while congratulating themselves of being so generous. No, Christmas was no better than the lets-have-an-excuse-to-stuff-ourselves holiday that Thanksgiving was. But people shouldn't die on Christmas. _Greg didn't know why. He couldn't understand his own thoughts. It was the most frustrating thing about him.

He just sat there for a moment. For a second in time, it seemed that the whole world around him became impossibly quiet. He could hear his own breath, raspy and solitary. _The universe was unfair. _It was the only conclusion he could draw. _Every day was a cold calculation of deaths and lives that the universe wrote in his book. Every once in a while something good would happen, and every once in a while something bad would happen. People will get sick, and they will die. They fight against it with every inch of their existence. They kiss under mistletoe and spend all their money on each other, in a lavish display of love and affection. But the universe doesn't care how much people care. It won't slow down even when the whole world joins hand in hand to stop the universe's uncaring injustice. So people will die, even on Christmas._ It wasn't right—not to Gregory House. _But right and wrong don't matter to the universe_, Greg thought. _All that matter is what is. Because what is, is fact. And when you stop to consider the matter, facts are the only things that make sense in our world._

Just then a young girl in a red Santa dress ran by, holding a wrapped gift. She was headed for the doors of the hospital. Greg watched her run. He thought about Christmases as a kid, opening gifts and sharing food with his family. He thought about kissing Christy Parker under the mistletoe in the fifth grade, and about spiking the class egg nog in the eleventh grade. He thought about Stacy and the Christmases they had spent together. He thought about it all. He considered. All those years hadn't seemed like a waste of time. They had been….happier times. Is it meaningless to be happy?

Gregory House stood up. He almost wished….but then he turned on his heal and went home, where he would spend the next few days alone. After all, it doesn't matter what was or what could be—only what is. Gregory House does not celebrate Christmas. _That is a fact_.


End file.
